Grease Rags: What Are the Best Options?

Grease can appear anywhere and everywhere in your shop, and cleaning it up typically requires a degreaser, special soap and some sort of rag.

Rags are your first line of defense against grease, but not all grease rags or grease spills are the same. When approaching workplace clean-ups, it helps to know your options.

Grease rags for automotive parts and machinery

If the parts you are trying to clean are small and mobile, we recommend soaking them in a concentrated cleaner or degreaser mixed with water, letting the parts sit for 24 hours before checking on them. Soaking will loosen and remove built-up grease before you start cleaning.

It’s more than likely that the rags you’ll use for this job will get so dirty you won’t use them again. Your choice here is to get the cheapest grease rag you can, or to spend a little bit more on a rag that will more effectively do the job.

If cost is your biggest concern, choose a cut-up polo t-shirt rag, made primarily from old cotton shirts that be used and disposed of after you’re done.

A higher-quality option are huck towels – also known as surgical towels – which are large, square rags with hemming around the edges. This textured material will provide greater grit while wiping and cleaning off the remaining dirt or grime.

Finally, an X-Tra Tuff wipe offers great consistency, durability and absorbency. Like their name says, they’re extra tough rags that won’t fall apart or rip easily. Less expensive than cotton rags, they come on a roll or a handy pop-up dispenser box.

Rags for removing grease from floors

Grease on shop floors is a serious problem. Even if it didn’t present a major slip-and-fall hazard, it would still stain your floors.

To remove grease from floors, we recommend using cleaners/degreasers on the floor first. We have numerous options of this available – such as Simple Green, Fleetkleen (which will remove the stain, smell and the grease), and generic degreasers.

Once you’ve loosened the grease, large terrycloth towels will work as an effective grease rag. They’re the size of a standard bath towel, but don’t sell for bath towel prices. The larger the surface area, the quicker you can remove the grease.

For a final clean, we recommend shammy towels, which will remove the greasy “sheen” from your floors. And of course, you can always put down a floor protection material – such as oil and water absorbent rolls to Extra Sticky Mats – to prevent grease from getting on your floors in the first place.

Grease rags for your hands

Once you’ve used some elbow grease to remove actual grease from your shop, it’s time to clean your hands. We recommend beginning with a hand cleaner and soap.

You can find industrial strength hand cleaners that contain special scrubbers designed to loosen grease from your hands, available in mobile and wall-mounted containers.

If you’re not keen on constantly having to add soap to these dispensers, we recommend our Megawypes, 9"x12" hand-cleaning towels that come in a dispenser tub, perfect to throw in the back of a truck or to bring directly onto the job site. These towels have some grit and are pre-moistened with a cleansing agent which helps clean hands on the go.

Cleaning grease will always be a dirty task, which is why we carry a full line of grease rags and other supplies to help remove grease from your equipment, floor and hands. Contact us today to learn more.